 | Dr. Michael Merson (far right) is pictured with some of the students entering the new M.P.H. program at St. Petersburg State University, which was created with the help of Yale and other universities. |
Dr. Michael Merson, the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA), spoke at the opening of Russia's first graduate-level public health program on Sept. 12.
Based at St. Petersburg State University (SPSU) in St. Petersburg, Russia, the M.P.H. program was developed mainly through collaboration with CIRA and Yale's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, as well as 10 other universities in the United States and Europe that offer graduate training in public health. CIRA and the other participating universities helped develop the SPSU public health program with financial support provided over a three-year period by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health.
"I have no doubt that this innovative, multidisciplinary degree-granting M.P.H. program is going to reap great benefit to SPSU, to the northwest region of Russia, and to the entire Russian federation and nearby countries," said Merson. "I expect that [the program] is going to stimulate the development of similar programs in other [Russian] universities and enhance discussions about the value and importance of modern public health at all levels of government."
Merson added, "The future of the M.P.H. program should be one that is firmly based on the traditions, beliefs and norms of Russian society, while using modern concepts and approaches in ways that best suit your needs and epidemiological situation."
A trained public health workforce is needed in Russia to implement programs that will help prevent HIV, tuberculosis, obesity, tobacco-related diseases, alcohol-related diseases, and other causes of high morbidity and premature mortality in the country.
The two-year SPSU program has matriculated 22 students in the first-year class, out of 40 applicants. The curriculum will be taught by 58 faculty members in seven departments at SPSU. The program plans to matriculate 15 to 30 students per year by 2007 and 50 to 100 per year by 2010.
T H I S
Merson speaks at launch of
Russia's first M.P.H. program
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